Click the player below for the very powerful session today. We kicked legal issues around today with David Yas, the publisher of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

He is a keen observer of and commenter on such issues as same-sex marriage and duties of our Supreme Judicial Court. He definitely has views on how secure the Goodridge decision establishing SSM here is and what the prospects are for such equality regionally and nationally. We also hit on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and how real legislating from the bench is.

Posts of the week

Ryan found his gem, Obama and Reagan’s Slipping Halo over at firedoglake.com. Many people have come down to quickly condemn Barack Obama’s Reagan praise, others have been just as quick to defend Obama. Jane Hamsher, on the other hand, gets it. Whether or not Obama thinks Ronald Reagan was the right President for the right time,

No, Ronald Reagan didn’t appeal to people’s optimism, he appealed to their petty, small minded bigotry and selfishness. Jimmy Carter told people to tighten their energy belts and act for the good of the country; Ronald Reagan told them they could guzzle gas with impunity and do whatever the hell they wanted.

Mike got a double hit off JasmyneCannick.com. The Los Angeleno says she hits “the issues that others can’t or simply won’t from a decidedly Black point of view.” For the current Dem hopefuls she writes that in yesterday’s debate she was screaming at the TV. More broadly, she takes them all to task with:

“I want to see the candidates take their debates to the streets. If they can campaign in our neighborhoods and take pictures with strategically placed Blacks for their websites and the media to show they like Black people and care about Black people, then come and talk to the people and stop talking at and about the people.”

She has another post on a marriage-equality reception that got her (bad) attention. She wrote:

I just have a hard time taking these types of groups seriously when I never see the group nor its members in the community on any issue of relevance but can always manage to get an email about marriage. The last time I looked we were flirting with a recession, unemployment was at its highest, and L.A. was still the homeless capital of the nation.